I want to root but have questions first! - G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Currently, I keep getting force close errors when sending messages and creating or editing contacts, I really want to fix this so I thought I might as well try and root my phone at the same time.
Here are my questions:
1. Should I fix these force close errors before I root my phone. If so, how?
2. Does rooting my G1 mean I'll lose my messages, contacts, etc?
3. Is there anyway I can save my messages, contacts, etc before I root my phone and reinstate them afterwards? (If they are lost in the process).
I hope my questions aren't too stupid!
Thanks!

Giggity giggity...... don't bother fixing the fc's, they would be fixed in the process. You will lose messages, call log, browser bookmarks, internal save apps, almost everything on your phone when you wipe it. Your contacts are synced with gmail and will auto restore, any apps you purchased will be availible for redownload in my downloads in the market, they are also linked to your gmail. Back-up wise, the only programs that I know back-up on root only or you have to pay for use. So you are **** out of luck there

Gridlock pretty much said it all. But I will add one thing tho, there are apps that will allow you to back up your sms first without root. Just go to the market and look up "backup" and you will see a bunch of apps that you might want.

If you are having FC while sending messages my personal opinion would be to not backup and restore anything that has to do with those messages. Just imo.
Make sure you have data sync turned on and you do a manual sync before you root to ensure you have an up-to-date backup of your contacts.
Menu > Settings > Data Sync > Menu button > Sync Now

Thanks for the answers guys. I've come across another damn problem now that I've been trying to back up my contacts. I have a bunch of numbers on my phone that appear to not be in any 'sync group'...I select all contacts in sync group and then make my contacts sync. I check my g-mail account and its just got all my e-mail addresses but not my phone numbers. When I sync My Contacts it sends only a few numbers. I can view "Contacts With Numbers" but I cant seem to sync them.
Also, when I select 'all contacts' to sync I get that damn red exclaimation mark.
In an attempt to sort this, I selected all my e-mail contacts in 'All Contacts' and sent them to a new group called 'E-mail'. Then I selected to delete 'All Contacts' expecting to retain them in my new 'E-mail' group and it deleted ALL my bloody contacts including 'My Contacts'. I've now lost the few numbers under 'My Contacts' (even on my phone somehow...) and all my damn E-mails!
Can someone please tell me how the hell I can sync "Contacts with numbers" onto my g-mail so I can root my ****ing phone!!!

Are the contacts you lost still on your gmail account if so it will prob just resync them and you still have your contacts on your sim card also well just the ones you had before you started using this phone. The most I ever backup is my app data, bookmarks always give me a fc on the browser when I restore. I don't worry bout contacts though since gmail handles that

Well this is my problem. My g-mail had none of my contacts! When I got this phone it was a fresh sim card with nothing on. I put all my numbers in by hand. My numbers were last (fully) synced on 27th Jan 09. Everytime I sync, I get My Contacts only. All the other numbers fail to sync, I'm guessing because they're not in any group. Even if I select all numbers to sync they don't go to my G-Mail. I had about 15 number sync in My Contacts (before I deleted the buggers). Now I'll have to get those back.
I need a way of putting all my numbers that aren't in My Contacts, into My Contacts to Google will sync them! I'm guessing this is because they were put into my phone because the update where Google made all newly entered numbers go into My Contacts...Hmm

Right, I've sorted it.
Downloaded an app from the the market place called ExportContacts. Worked like a treat. It wrote all my contacts to a .csv. Simply imported them on G-Mail. Added them to contacts, deleted all of them on my phone and re-synced. AT LAST I CAN ROOT!

Giggity said:
Right, I've sorted it.
Downloaded an app from the the market place called ExportContacts. Worked like a treat. It wrote all my contacts to a .csv. Simply imported them on G-Mail. Added them to contacts, deleted all of them on my phone and re-synced. AT LAST I CAN ROOT!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
woot glad you got it to work and this is good info for general use as well

Related

[Q] Overwrite google contacts with phone contacts - how?

I have a little problem. I just found out my contacts are corrupted after I tested a contact management application. Unfortunately, I only found out after some days, and after the contacts had been synchronized back to google.
The good news - I have a couple of nandroids and some titanium backups made before the contacts got corrupted. I can get back to the correct version.
The bad news - as soon as the phone syncs with google, the contacts get overwritten with the corrupted ones. I even tried clearing google contacts, and syncing, and all that got me was a empty contacts list both in google and the phone.
What I need - a way to force overwriting google contacts with the restored backup. I know I probably could go opening and updating each contact one by one (adding a space on the name or something like it) and that could work, tricking the synchronization engine to prefer the phone contacts to the google version, but I have over 600 contacts, with 150 with phone numbers; I'd rather not do that by hand.
Any suggestion?
Thanks!
Try this, Get all your contacts back from the Nandroid. Don't connect the nexus to your Google account just yet, goto the contacts in N1 & click on menu button choose to export to .vcf after that copy the .vcf file to your computer. Log into your Gmail account on the computer and delete all the Gmail contacts, then choose to import .vcf file from your computer to your Gmail account, once you've managed to get the contacts imported to Gmail setup your N1 to Sync to the Gmail account. That should do it. Cheers.
Thanks, but I had already tried that - and ended doing exactly that. The problem with that solution is that you lose all your groups, favourites, and starred contacts. Now I'm backing up contacts in gmail a group at a time, so I won't have this problem again.
jbbandos said:
Thanks, but I had already tried that - and ended doing exactly that. The problem with that solution is that you lose all your groups, favourites, and starred contacts. Now I'm backing up contacts in gmail a group at a time, so I won't have this problem again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bit of a pita I know but as far as I can see there's really no other way if you use Groups.
Sean_Dillon said:
Try this, Get all your contacts back from the Nandroid. Don't connect the nexus to your Google account just yet, goto the contacts in N1 & click on menu button choose to export to .vcf after that copy the .vcf file to your computer. Log into your Gmail account on the computer and delete all the Gmail contacts, then choose to import .vcf file from your computer to your Gmail account, once you've managed to get the contacts imported to Gmail setup your N1 to Sync to the Gmail account. That should do it. Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, I'd try deleting all contacts off the phone once it's synched with Google (then sync again, obviously), THEN restoring the .vcf
while syncing my phone contacts with my google account, i want to keep changes made in my phone directory and over write these changes in my google account. currently it is other way round. my old contact details keep on copying in my phone when ever i sync. specially if any one has changed his address, i make this change in my phone and i want it to happen to my contacts google accounts also when i sync. but it is not happening. seek your help

Titanium Backup is scary, how do I work it?

What do I WANT it for, exactly?
Secondly, I just want to backup my contacts because Google Sync won't Sync my contact photos. I want my contact photos to save. Do I... backup the contact app?
Tibo is for flash junkies who like to flash roms like crazy It basicly restores your apps without loosing any data. My google sync works fine It saves Pictures with contacts.
I personally don't like to backup becouse for some reason when you update those aps that were restore dont work or it downloads and hangs. But to each its own.
chibixzero said:
Tibo is for flash junkies who like to flash roms like crazy It basicly restores your apps without loosing any data. My google sync works fine It saves Pictures with contacts.
I personally don't like to backup becouse for some reason when you update those aps that were restore dont work or it downloads and hangs. But to each its own.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just want my contact pictures to save to my contacts, and for my contacts to be saved to Google.
To backup your contacts to your phone you could just click menu from the contact list and select export.
To backup them with google you just have to select the option Sync Contacts under Settings -> Accounts & Sync -> your gmail account
it is usually selected by default though...
after that, wait for it to sync and check your google account from your computer and go to contacts to check if they are there
the pics are backed up as well; they will not show on the contact list on your gmail account, but click on a contact and it will show you the picture
just as easy as that, if you flash/change/etc your phone, when you put your google account afterwards it will download all your contacts with their pics from google
rastanthology said:
To backup your contacts to your phone you could just click menu from the contact list and select export.
To backup them with google you just have to select the option Sync Contacts under Settings -> Accounts & Sync -> your gmail account
it is usually selected by default though...
after that, wait for it to sync and check your google account from your computer and go to contacts to check if they are there
the pics are backed up as well; they will not show on the contact list on your gmail account, but click on a contact and it will show you the picture
just as easy as that, if you flash/change/etc your phone, when you put your google account afterwards it will download all your contacts with their pics from google
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's never synced with my account. Never.
I have a video for this please check out my thread...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=877652
From what I can tell google does not sync a contact if it dies not have and email address. If I am wrong can someone tell me how to do it/ I have created contacts under google on my phone that do not have emails and they do not show up in my Google contacts on my computer. Google does not sync any of your "Phone contacts", at least not on my phone
Try going into Settings -> Accounts & Sync -> your gmail account again and this time press the menu button and click Sync Now.
Thanks! I tried but it did not work.
Something is wrong with your phone. On mine, every contact entry that I made on the phone shows up on my gmail contact list. Some don't have email addresses at all.
you could also try to make a backup by exporting the contacts, flash a new rom and try to sync again
are you on stock or on a custom rom?
visitador02 said:
Something is wrong with your phone. On mine, every contact entry that I made on the phone shows up on my gmail contact list. Some don't have email addresses at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are your contacts saved to your phone or Google. My Google contacts sync, phone contacts do not. Google contacts without email don't sync either.
LBCaptivate said:
Are your contacts saved to your phone or Google. My Google contacts sync, phone contacts do not. Google contacts without email don't sync either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am confused. Why would I need Google Contacts to Sync?
I have no Google Contacts. I copied all my SIM Contacts to my Phone. From there on out, how to make them Google Contacts, I'm at a loss.
I don't need my Google contacts to sync since they sync fine. It is the contacts that are saved to my phone that will not sync to google. I do not want to backup my contacts to the sim card since some of them have multiple #s. When you backup to the sim card each phone number under one contact is saved as an individual contact giving you multiple entries for one contact. My phone is still stock. I did a master reset to see if it would help with the shutdown issue, which by the way, did not help. It just created problems with all my contacts. Some were lost and others now have the wrong numbers associated with them. The only contacts that stayed the same were the Google contacts. The phone contacts were all messed up. I plan on getting the phone replaced under warranty and don't want to go through the headache of having to redo all the phone contacts again.
Just looking for a way to completely backup a stock phone. AT&T address book is useless now because of the JH7 update.

[Q] Syncing to Google

This should be absurdly easy but for some reason is not working for me. I've been saving my accounts to Google when I make a new contact, and I am doing so now as well. When I flash they don't get synced back, even if I use Tibu to restore the SMS data. Also now I made sure Google Contact sync is set up and added a couple of the missing people back and have checked and they still don't show up in my Google contacts. What gives? How do I save all my new contacts to the cloud/Google account? Am I missing something simple?
Check your gmail on a computer to see if they are in the cloud.
You never said if you keep your accounts set to auto sync or not, just spit balling.
Hey,
Sorry guys when I said I made sure my Google contact sync is set up and I checked my Google contacts I actually meant the auto-sync is set up and I checked the Google contacts on my gmail.
Any other ideas?
P.S. It does seem the Tibu restore showed up after I restarted, but still doesn't explain why my contacts wouldn't just sync to Google anyways? I will be getting a new phone pretty soon and obviously am going to need them to be on Google Contacts to put them back onto my new phone, but they aren't showing up
That seems a bit strange. It seems like you're doing things correctly (from what I remember). Well as an alternative you can always export your contacts to your SD as a vCard file and save that on your PC to reinstall your contacts onto your new phone.

Help my fix 'Contacts' please

Hi. I have a rooted Captivate with Froyo and a few weeks ago, my Contacts (the app) started acting up.
At first, my contacts (all Google contacts) would disappear and reappear randomly. Now my contacts are all gone, except for a few 'Unknown' ones which are recent callers. What's worse, now Contacts won't open most of the times and when it does, it makes the phone really slow or it force closes.
I don't recall (un)installing or modifying anything and I REALLY don't want to reset my phone.
At the time I was using GoDialer from the market but uninstalling it didn't change anything. Maybe it broke something. Is there a way to reinstall the Contacts app or files?
Anyway, I appreciate any help.
If you saved all your contacts under your gmail account you should be able to get them all back as long as you choose the "sync contacts" under account settings for gmail.
log into gmail, confirm that all of your contacts are there, and try clearing the data for the Contacts application. Then resync and hopefully you are all set. Maybe do a titanium backup of your contact data first, too, just to be 100% sure you don't delete anything.

Empty Duplicated Contacts Read Only?

Ok I've done some digging and can't seem to find anything with my exact problem.
Yes I have looked up duplicated read only contacts BUT everyone seems to have this issue with contacts synced from another app. Mine is no.
Got this baby this past Sunday (found out that I can upgrade 7 days early so of course I did it. Love the phone and think I will be okay without root. Got Helium backup to backup my data. Only thing left is for them to add a Restart in the power menu then I'll be fine with no Root. OH and they need to get Lolipop out ASAP)
But ever since then I've been having this issue. I've been having new contacts made, same name as a contact I have, but with not info (most of the time. Sometimes it has their number in it). Now here is where it gets weird.
They are Google contacts that it says are saved under my Gmail. I go to Gmail, No duplicated contacts there, I try to delete, says they are read only and can only hide, AND it seems like the contacts that are getting duplicated are contacts that I seem to call most often. I have all other apps and their contact sync turned off so I know it's not an issue with them, and since they are saved under Gmail and when I turn off the local Phone contacts they are still there so I know they are not local saved/SIM contacts.
If anyone has any suggestions let me know. I felt like I had this issue loooooong ago with another phone but pretty sure it was back when Facebook synced its contacts and I had to link them.
I'm a savvy guy and know my way around Android.
Thanks
Ok well i ended up getting it myself.
For people with this issue:
Turn off google contact sync. Then go to apps in settings and then look for the contact storage app. Force stoo the act and clean all data. Check contacts to make sure its empty. Then enable google contacts sync.
Sent from my XT1254 using XDA Free mobile app
Contacts in Android are stored in a database, and as they come from multiple sources (synced from Google, Facebook, Whatsapp, LinkedIn and copied from SIM or stored as "local phone" contacts...) it's easy to have multiple instances of same contact with different info or even duplicates. Contacts app let you "join" multiple contacts from different sources so they will appear joined in your contacts list, but they will still be stored inidividually in the database.
Anyway, there are multiple apps that let you manage your contacts at a deeper database level. With MiniContacts https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brapeba.minicontacts you can see all raw contacts one by one showing its original account source (group). And you can delete all contacts from a source (i.e. those coming from LinkedIn, or Facebook) or choosing manually those you don't want. Notice that if you don't disable the syncronization with the source those deleted contacts will reappear again. So, first disable syncronization! If you want to delete the contacts permanently from everywhere instead of just from your Android database, go to the source (LinkedIn, Facebook...) and delete them there.
Hope it helps...
drtweak said:
Ok I've done some digging and can't seem to find anything with my exact problem.
Yes I have looked up duplicated read only contacts BUT everyone seems to have this issue with contacts synced from another app. Mine is no.
Got this baby this past Sunday (found out that I can upgrade 7 days early so of course I did it. Love the phone and think I will be okay without root. Got Helium backup to backup my data. Only thing left is for them to add a Restart in the power menu then I'll be fine with no Root. OH and they need to get Lolipop out ASAP)
But ever since then I've been having this issue. I've been having new contacts made, same name as a contact I have, but with not info (most of the time. Sometimes it has their number in it). Now here is where it gets weird.
They are Google contacts that it says are saved under my Gmail. I go to Gmail, No duplicated contacts there, I try to delete, says they are read only and can only hide, AND it seems like the contacts that are getting duplicated are contacts that I seem to call most often. I have all other apps and their contact sync turned off so I know it's not an issue with them, and since they are saved under Gmail and when I turn off the local Phone contacts they are still there so I know they are not local saved/SIM contacts.
If anyone has any suggestions let me know. I felt like I had this issue loooooong ago with another phone but pretty sure it was back when Facebook synced its contacts and I had to link them.
I'm a savvy guy and know my way around Android.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply but it is making blank contacts with theur name and storing then as phone contacts. Google is the only source i sync any contacts from but ill give this a try
Sent from my XT1254 using XDA Free mobile app
Thanks for the tip, @drtweak! This was driving me nuts and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Good work...
Thanks!
drtweak said:
Ok well i ended up getting it myself.
For people with this issue:
Turn off google contact sync. Then go to apps in settings and then look for the contact storage app. Force stoo the act and clean all data. Check contacts to make sure its empty. Then enable google contacts sync.
Sent from my XT1254 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I could kiss you right now. I have been scouring the internet and downloading apps for hours trying to figure out how to fix "read only" and "can't be deleted" contacts on my second replacement dud Turbo 2. Duplicates galore, and they wouldn't go away. Thank you, thank you, thank you! :laugh: No more Verizon Cloud - that really messed it up both times. Merry Christmas! :good:
Christina729 said:
I could kiss you right now. I have been scouring the internet and downloading apps for hours trying to figure out how to fix "read only" and "can't be deleted" contacts on my second replacement dud Turbo 2. Duplicates galore, and they wouldn't go away. Thank you, thank you, thank you! :laugh: No more Verizon Cloud - that really messed it up both times. Merry Christmas! :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The app Simpler Contacts can merge duplicate apps. I've used it on friends' phones to do that.
Of course, Simpler Contacts also would like you to keep using their app and even their backup service, and they have a Dialer app too. But you don't need all that. I just use Simpler Contacts once in a while to check for duplicate contacts.
But this solution above is good too.
I also used Simpler Contacts to export all contacts from a "local" account. Helped to friends do this when they switched from iPhone to Android and the carrier store exported all their iPhone apps to "local" phone account -- which is STUPID. All the contacts need to synced with Google.

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